


love beyond the bones

by carrieevew



Series: Bellarke Bingo [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Bellarke Bingo, F/M, Marriage Agreement, Roaring Twenties, Supernatural Elements, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:02:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25618549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrieevew/pseuds/carrieevew
Summary: After tossing and turning for a while, Clarke finally decided that instead of smarting at Mr. Blake’s rejection, she could be irritated that he didn’t even have the decency to inform her that he wasn’t interested in consummating their marriage.With that last thought, Clarke finally fell asleep.Only to be woken up hours later by the sound of someone moving around the house. She could hear footsteps, doors closing and some unrecognisable knocking.Clarke was so drowsy at first, that it took her a while to wake up but even then, she was struggling to locate the source of the noise. She suspected at first that it was Mrs. Diyoza, but Clarke’s bedroom was the only room occupied on that floor and if the housekeeper wasn’t at Clarke’s, then she had no reason to even be on that floor this late into the night.And besides, the more lucid Clarke was, the more it seemed like that noised were coming from inside the walls. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?if being married to a virtual stranger wasn't enough, Clarke discovers that her and Bellamy's new home is haunted.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: Bellarke Bingo [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1417291
Comments: 18
Kudos: 134





	love beyond the bones

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual, this was _supposed to_ be a quick little thing but somewhere down the line, it grew legs and ran away from me.  
> you'll notice that it's marked as a historical AU and it's set somewhere in the mid-1920s but please, do not pay too much attention to any and all possible anachronisms; i had to made a conscious effort not to spend too much time doing research or i never would've finished writing this.
> 
> title from _[Bones]()_ by Equinox.
> 
> enjoy!

The ceremony was nothing like Clarke ever imagined her wedding would look like. 

She'd long forgone the fairy-tale notion of marrying the prince charming in the throes of an epic romance and settled for hoping she'd be lucky enough to find what her parents seemed to have had—a partnership that grew into a friendly love and affection. But as the time went by and their situation changed, she started to wish she'd at least have a choice of a husband.

Unfortunately, The Great War claimed the life of her beloved father and she and her mother were forced to rent the rooms of Arkadia Hall in order to earn enough to keep themselves afloat. That, however, didn't last for long and after a few years, Abby Griffin was forced to start selling off their possession and properties—until she fell ill with pneumonia so severe that her already weak body couldn't handle. 

At the age of 24, Clarke had been left completely alone in the world, with a mountain of debts to settle and no way of doing so. As an unmarried woman, she couldn't sell the rest of the Griffin estate, nor could she find anyone interested in getting married only so that she could get rid of what little dowry she was coming into the marriage with. 

It wasn't until her friends, Mrs. Green, introduced her to one Bellamy Blake, a friend of Harper's husband from the Army, who'd recently come to some significant amount of money and was apparently interested in marriage. Clarke worried, for a moment, about what kind of a man was willing to get married to someone he'd only just met and didn't even seem to like very much. But the worry past quickly, as more creditors came knocking and she found herself getting desperate. 

Desperate enough to end up in city hall with no-one but Mrs. Green and her husband's other friend, John Murphy, as witnesses. 

There was one thing she always hoped for, no matter how disillusioned she became about her marriage prospects, and that was that her father would be there to give her away. Now, as she stood opposite her new husband, exchanging perfunctory wows, she couldn't help the pang of grief at the thought that she didn't even have that anymore. 

***

The first time Clarke set foot in the townhouse that her husband had purchased for them, a chill ran down her spine. Clarke quickly chalked it up to nerves. It wasn’t just her first night in her new home but also their first night together as husband and wife.

Clarke had spent most of the time between their engagement and marriage preparing to move her whole life from Arkadia Hall to Sanctum City. She never even had the chance to visit the new house before they were married and now, she was starting her new life, with her new husband, in an entirely new place. No wonder she was nervous.

That first night, their housekeeper, Mrs. Diyoza, helped Clarke settle in her new bedroom and once she was ready for bed, Mrs. Diyoza bid her a goodnight and promised to inform Mr. Blake that she was ready for him.

The moment the door closed behind Mrs. Diyoza, Clarke sat down heavily on her bed, her finger clutching tightly at the smooth material of her nightgown. Her mother always promised her that the key to surviving her wedding night was to manage her expectations. If she was lucky enough, her husband would be perfectly gentle with her but there was no point in hoping to enjoy it—they’d both be tired from the ceremony and it would take time for the two of them to learn each other and find their rhythm together. And for that, Clarke believed herself to be prepared. But that was back when she thought she’d have the time to be courted by her fiancé and they’d be able to get to know each other.

The idea of sharing her bed for the first time with a complete stranger was—daunting, to say the least. Her childhood friends, who married long before her, shared with her all sort of stories and the awkward fumblings with Finn Collins and Lexa Woods that she allowed herself in her late teens gave her some idea of what to expect but once _the_ night came, she still found herself pacing around her bedroom, hands clasped tightly together, hoping to stop them from shaking.

The last thing she expected from the night was her husband not showing at all.

Two hours have passed since Mrs. Diyoza left her alone, of which she was very aware, given that she was able to hear the striking of the grandfather clock at the end of the corridor. When the clock stroke eleven, Clarke finally gave up waiting. She settled in her bed, trying to reconcile the strange feelings she was having—chief among them, that unexpected disappointment at the fact that her husband wasn’t interested in her after all.

After tossing and turning for a while, Clarke finally decided that instead of smarting at Mr. Blake’s rejection, she could be irritated that he didn’t even have the decency to inform her that he wasn’t interested in consummating their marriage.

With that last thought, Clarke finally fell asleep.

Only to be woken up hours later by the sound of someone moving around the house. She could hear footsteps, doors closing and some unrecognisable knocking.

Clarke was so drowsy at first, that it took her a while to wake up but even then, she was struggling to locate the source of the noise. She suspected at first that it was Mrs. Diyoza, but Clarke’s bedroom was the only room occupied on that floor and if the housekeeper wasn’t at Clarke’s, then she had no reason to even be on that floor this late into the night.

And besides, the more lucid Clarke was, the more it seemed like that noised were coming from inside the walls. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?

Clarke swaddled herself in her duvet, covering her ears, and closed her eyes, telling herself to ignore the noises. It was just an old house with newly installed accommodations. She reminded herself of Mr. Blake telling her that it had been recently renovated, so that the electricity and the central heating were still new enough. Those must have been the source of those noises, Clarke convinced herself.

She took in deep, measured breaths until she finally stopped paying attention to all the muffled scraping and the occasional knocking.

By the time Mrs. Diyoza came in to wake her up in the morning, Clarke almost managed to convinced herself that she’d dreamt the whole thing, anyway.

***

When Clarke came down for breakfast in the morning, she had every intention of discussing the previous night with her husband. Should she expect him to come to her bedroom any time soon, or was he not planning to start a family with her at all? When they talked about their marriage before the wedding, it felt more like negotiating a business proposition and Clarke was so focused on making sure that she will be able to settle her estate the way she wanted to, that she completely forgot to ask how Mr. Blake expected their family life to look like. The kiss they shared at the wedding was so quick and dry that it told Clarke nothing about his intentions or preferences.

Clarke sat down on Mr. Blake’s right side and when he welcomed her with the same tight-lipped smile he always had for her, another thought popped into her head. Was he even interested in women at all? Or maybe this arrangement was just as a mean to an end as it was for her? She opened her mouth to ask about it but no words came out of her mouth. If that was, in fact, the case, then who was she to push him into admitting something he wasn’t ready for.

Clarke returned his smile instead. She poured herself a cup of tea and picked up a piece of toasted bread. They sat in silence but with each bite, it felt less and less awkward. They’d only been married for less than a day. They still had plenty of time to ask questions.

***

A week later, Clarke found herself strolling around the house in a search of her husband. When she couldn’t find him in any of the sitting rooms or his office, she turned towards the library. She stood in the doorway and scanned the room, disappointed when she couldn’t see him. She was ready to retreat, when she heard some rustling from behind one of the shelves and when she came closer, a small smile found its way onto her lips.

Her husband was sitting on the floor, with his back resting against the shelf, surrounded by thick volumes in a language Clarke only vaguely recognised as Latin. He had his reading glasses on and his thick, dark hair was an absolute mess on the top of his head, like her ran his fingers through his curls time and time again. An unfamiliar but not unwelcomed pang of affection tugged at Clarke as she watched him for a moment, his handsome face half-hidden by his hair. He was so engrossed in his studies that he didn’t even notice her standing there, not until she cleared his throat, startling him enough for a small pencil to come flying out of his hand.

“Hello,” he welcomed her, sounding confused, which only widened the smile on Clarke’s face. It seemed that after merely seven days of living together, he was still not used to having Clarke there. It wasn’t exactly surprising, they didn’t have too much time to spend together, with him tending to his business and her busy settling her family’s estate.

Clarke made a point of sitting down with her husband after dinner to discuss the day, so that he’d at least be aware of what she was doing. A few times, she even tried to talk about something more than money and their legal affairs but aside from the Greens, they didn’t have any shared friends yet and any time she tried to implore about his own family, his face would harden in a way that left no doubt that he wasn’t ready to talk about it.

Those conversations would eventually peter out and they were left just sitting there in silence but to her immense surprise, Clarke found herself enjoying that. Her whole life in Arkadia Hall was filled with noise—be it from the servants hustling and bustling around the house, her mother’s raucous parties or eventually, the lodgers renting the rooms after the War.

This peace and quiet wasn’t something Clarke was used to but there was something very comfortable about being able to settle in for the evening and allow the tension to leave her body, while in a company of someone who didn’t seem to expect anything from her.

Clarke never thought that she’d be getting used to her husband by not talking to him too much, but it seemed to work for them, so she didn’t try to rush anything.

“Mr. Blake,” she started, rubbing her palms over her skirt, suddenly feeling nervous about asking him for anything.

He got up from the floor at the sound of his name and Clarke instinctively took a small step back. He wasn’t that much taller than her but he possessed a presence that seemed to fill every room he entered, especially as he looked at her with undivided attention.

“My father’s attorney reached out to me,” Clarke informed him. “Apparently, we’re ready to finalise the sale of the remaining properties and settle the estate for good.”

Mr. Blake nodded his head but Clarke could see that he didn’t quite understand why she was telling him about it. She often forgot that all this money was very new to him, having made it all in a few well-time investments right after the War. For all intents and purposes, he had a good head for business but couldn’t yet wrap it around the intricacies of being wealthy. She smiled again.

“As my husband, you’re needed to approve of the sale, to accept the money and distribute it to settle all the outstanding debts.”

His eyebrows jumped up, like he only just remembered why _Clarke_ needed to get married in the first place. “Right,” he said. “I’ll—uhm, let me know where do we need to go and when.”

“I set up the meeting for tomorrow at noon,” Clarke informed him. “I thought it best to get it done as soon as possible. But of course, if you’re too busy, I’ll reschedule.”

Mr. Blake shook his head. “No, yes, you’re right,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “Tomorrow’s absolutely alright.”

Clarke nodded her head once and turned to leave but before she could walk away, she felt a hand wrap itself around her wrist. She looked down in surprise, her arm jerking. Mr. Blake let go of her the second he noticed her expression and immediately, she regretted the loss of his warm fingers against her skin.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. Clarke took a step closer, hoping he’ll take it as a sign that she wasn’t uncomfortable. She looked up at him.

“I was just—” he stuttered and swallowed thickly. “Do you think you might be comfortable calling me by my given name?” he asked, words tumbling out of his mouth quickly.

Clarke gasped. “Oh,” she said.

“You keep calling me Mr. Blake and I you Mrs. Blake but I was wondering—I mean, it’s perfectly understandable if you don’t think you’re ready for this familiarity, we haven’t had much time to get to know each other just yet—“ he went on, clearly growing more uncertain.

“Bellamy,” Clarke interrupted, trying out the name. She found she liked it, a lot.

“I promise you that I’m not uncomfortable like that,” she assured him. “I was just—” her voice trailed off. Truth be told, Clarke wasn’t sure what she was going to say. It seemed that the only reason why she never thought to start calling Bellamy by his given name was simply because—she never thought about it. He was Mr. Blake when they met and when they married a few weeks later. _Bellamy_ was more of a husband she wasn’t sure he was to her just yet. But maybe she was wrong.

“I think I understand,” Bellamy told her and though she had no idea how it was possible, she actually believed that he did.

“Clarke,” he tried her name with a smile and Clarke could feel warmth pool somewhere low in her belly at the sound of his voice. She felt her cheeks heat up and looked down, hoping that Bellamy hadn’t noticed the blush. She looked back up when she felt it had receded and saw that Bellamy too had a sheepish expression on his face.

Well, who knew, maybe he wasn’t do unaffected by her as she previously thought.

***

The noises came back the next night.

And they would’ve woken Clarke up for certain, if only she were sleeping. But she’d been on edge the whole afternoon after coming back home from the lawyer’s. Marcus Kane closed all the deals for her and when all was said and done, he told her how sorry he was about what happened to her parents. It was a nice enough thing for him to say but all it did was remind her of all that she lost and just how alone she was now.

Clarke stayed quiet for the rest of the day. She appreciated Bellamy’s efforts to engage her in any conversation that might distract her but soon, he realised she just needed some time and they spent the evening in a silence. She had to admit, though, having him around helped, if only to make her feel just a tad less lonely.

Once in bed, Clarke failed to settle down for hours. But the time the clock struck three, she was already exhausted but not a step closer to falling asleep. Which is why when she first heard what she could only guess was the sound of furniture moving, she practically jumped out of bed.

Clarke opened her bedroom door and looked around the corridor but not surprisingly, it was empty. She took a few steps outside but it seemed that the further away from her bedroom she got, the less she could hear those noises. She went back inside then and walked around the room, trying to find their source, noting how they changed from scraping to creaking, to knocking.

Clarke ran her fingers over the walls, looking for any sign that there was a doorway to a room she didn’t know about but she couldn’t find anything. She let out a frustrated huff and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, her back against the wall. Clarke put her head in her hands, putting her fingers over her ears and took measured breaths. Before the hour was up, suddenly it was quiet again. Dead silent, actually, and for some reason, that unsettled Clarke even more than the noises.

When her heart finally calmed down, Clarke got up from the floor and started toward her bed. When she walked past her door, she considered going downstairs and waking—someone. Her first thought was Bellamy but she stopped with her hand on the handle already at the thought of waking her husband in the middle of the night for what was probably nothing. She wasn’t sure she was quite ready for seeing him in his own bedroom, in his sleepwear, all rumpled and sleepy.

Clarke took her hand back and rushed to her bed instead. Sleep eluded her for the rest of the night but for entirely different reasons now.

***

Over the next few weeks, Clarke almost got used to those noises. They came and went every few nights or so and every time, Clarke woke up and stayed up until they stopped for the night, and then she went back to sleep. Every time.

It became as much a routine to her as spending time with her husband did. Ever since that first time Clarke found Bellamy in the library, she’d come to join him there to read, talk or just watch him, while he continued with his studies. At some point, Clarke finally asked him about it and he told her, quite bashfully, that studying history had always been a dream of his and while he’d given up on going to an university already, he decided to indulge that dream and started to collect all the historical books that piqued his interests. 

Clarke started to really enjoy those evenings at home with just the two of them but a couple of months after the wedding, they received their first invitation to a party at the Greens’ and they both decided it wouldn’t be proper to decline. Clarke put on one of the few new dresses she could afford to buy before she married and the two of them left for the party. It was awkward at first, to answer all the questions about their married life and how soon will they start having children, but things got somewhat better when, after hearing yet another ‘good advice’ on how best to conceive a son, Bellamy cleared his throat and asked Clarke to dance.

He was not a skilled dancer, that was for sure, and Clarke was a little stiff for being this close to him for so long for the first time but after a first few songs, they managed to find their rhythm together. When the music changed to something slower, Bellamy splayed his hand between Clarke’s shoulder blades and pulled her a step closer to him. Unexpectedly, the warm pressure of his hand relaxed her enough to wrap her arms a little tighter around him. Still, she insisted – to herself – that the hot sensation spreading throughout her body was the champagne she’d drunk during the evening and had nothing to do with the soft smile Bellamy was sending her.

As more months passed and they got closer to Christmas, their social calendar filled up with parties, dinners and lunched with new friends. And every time they walk back home afterward, they spent a little longer on their way back, talking and laughing. With time, Clarke grew to enjoy those moments more and more. More than the social engagements, actually. When the weather changed and they could no longer stroll back to the house, they made a new routine and went out for long walks around the park every Sunday afternoon.

In the meantime, it seemed that Bellamy started noticing that Clarke wasn’t sleeping well, not anymore. The noises in her bedroom intensified with time. They were waking her up almost every night now and lasted for much longer than before. So much so that Clarke started to dread going to sleep or even back to her room. A few times she even fell asleep in the library and whenever Bellamy woke her with a soft hand on her face was the safest she felt in a long time.

Still, she told him nothing. Every time he looked like he wanted to ask, Clarke could feel herself almost opening her mouth to say something but she never did. What could she have said, anyway? That banging and scratching was keeping her at night and she was starting to feel like her bedroom was haunted? Or maybe that recently, Clarke started to hear something that sounded almost like—a voice. High and female, first talking, then giggling and finally moaning. It sounded satisfied, _pleasured_.

Those nights, Clarke laid with her eyes closed shut, trying to convince herself that she was wrong and her husband wasn’t bringing a mistress back to their home. But if that were true, it only left that other option, no matter how insane that sounded – that there was a ghost in the house. She tried to figure it out on her own. During the day, she walked around the house, listening in to any and all strange noises but nothing sounded like what she was hearing. Nothing that seemed so—sinister.

That was another thing that made her believe there really was something going on in the house. Clarke couldn’t believe herself for thinking that but with each night, it felt almost like the ghost was after her, specifically. Like it drew pleasure from seeing her exhaust herself and lose her mind. It made her feel alone, isolated. And she couldn’t tell anyone about it, lest she avoided sounding like a complete lunatic.

***

Clarke was drowning.

That was the only explanations that she could think of, even though she could’ve sworn she was still safely in her bed.

When she was ten years old, she and her family went on a holiday at Alpha Station with the Jahas. One day, Wells convinced her to slip away from their nanny and go swimming in the nearby lake. They jumped from the pier in their clothes and the hem of Clarke’s dress caught on something in the water. Before she was able to free herself, she’d already spent enough time under that the lack of air made her head dizzy.

That was the first thing that came to her head that night, when she woke up thrashing in her bed, gasping for air, unable to catch a breath.

And then there were two hands, pulling her out of the water and towards the sun.

Only there was no sun, just the small lamp on her bedside table. But the two hands were grasping onto her shoulders firmly.

“—wake up, Clarke!” Bellamy’s voice came to her through the fog and the blood rushing into her ears. She blinked rapidly and tried to look around, to see where she was. The room around her took shape but somehow, she could still feel the water on her face. It was only when Bellamy brought his hand to her face to rub under her eyes, she realised that what he wiped away were her tears.

Clarke struggled in Bellamy’s grip but when he let go of her so that she could sit up, she immediately missed the warmth of his touch.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice hoarse. She brought her hand to her throat and rubbed, still wondering what happened.

“You were screaming,” Bellamy told her, one of his hands resting over her thigh, the weight comforting, tying her to reality. “You woke me up and when I came here, I think you were having a nightmare. I couldn’t wake you up, it scared me.”

“I drowned,” Clarke choked out. “It wasn’t—it didn’t feel like a dream. _It_ did that to me!”

“What? What do you mean?” Bellamy was confused, clearly, his brow furrowed.

Before Clarke could explain, a high-pitched laughter interrupted them. Clarke gasped and raised her hands to cover her ears. It chilled the blood in her veins and felt like a sharp stab inside her chest.

“Leave me alone,” she whined, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her forehead against her knees. Bellamy’s hand was still on her body and at the sound of the laughter, his grip tightened. His head turned as he looked around the room.

“What the hell?!”

Clarke’s head whipped up. “You can hear that?” she asked, incredulous. The laughter turned into a delighted giggle. Clarke shuddered.

“Yes, I can hear that!” Bellamy almost growled. “What the devil’s going on?!”

“I don’t know!” Clarke cried out, arms falling to the bed, tears rolling down her face again. Bellamy moved closer and she thought he was about to gather her into his arms but he stopped and looked at her, as if asking for permission. Clarke inhaled and all but threw herself into his arms. The giggling stopped and all Clarke could hear was her ragged breathing and the steady beat of Bellamy’s heart. It calmed her, as much as possible.

“I don’t know what’s happening but it’s getting worse. I feel like I’m starting to go out of my mind,” she mumbled into his shoulder. Bellamy was running his hand over her hair but stopped when he heard her.

“Worse? Clarke, how long had that been going on?”

She sighed and moved her head from Bellamy’s shoulder. She looked at his face, contorted with worry, fear and anger. But most importantly, he didn’t look at her like he thought she was mad. So after all those months of trying to deal with this by herself, she finally told him everything. About the scraping, the knocking, the footsteps. Her voice wavered when she spoke about hearing the woman’s voice but there was no recognition in his eyes when she mentioned the dates when Clarke heard her, which dislodged and loosened some part of the weight she’d been carrying with her. She hesitated before telling him that she thought there was a ghost in the house but she’d gotten this far in her story, there was no point in holding back now.

When Clarke finished her story, she saw that Bellamy’s jaw was clenched. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and exhaled. “I heard some of that,” he admitted, roughly. “A knock here and there, I always assumed they were the neighbours.”

Clarke smiled crookedly. “We don’t have neighbours on this side of the house,” she reminded him.

Bellamy looked up from between his fingers. “Yes, but that’s not so easy to remember in the middle of the night. And definitely not as easy to sleep to.” Clarke almost laughed at that but that came out was a strangled huff of air. Still, that was progress.

Bellamy leaned away from her but Clarke couldn’t let go of him. She grabbed his hand without thinking.

“Can you, could you stay with me tonight?” she asked shyly, eyes downcast.

“Of course,” Bellamy answered. He climbed onto the bed, leaned against the headboard and pulled Clarke into his embrace. She settled against his chest, head resting on his shoulder. She could feel Bellamy running his fingers down her back, over the bumps of her spine. She counted her breaths and tried to focused on that but in the end, it was his strong shoulders around her and his chest, rising and falling regularly under her, that finally lulled to sleep.

***

“Who do you think it is?” Clarke asked during breakfast.

They were woken that morning by Mrs. Diyoza who came into Clarke’s bedroom, like she always did, and opened the curtains before she noticed the two of them on the bed. If she found it strange that they were sleeping sitting up against the headboard, wrapped in each other, she didn’t say anything. Nor did she comment on the fact that when they came down for breakfast, they were still wearing their sleepwear and looked just as exhausted as they felt.

“Huh?” Bellamy answered, absentmindedly, only just looking at her. He’d been staring at the painting behind Clarke’s head the entire time. “What do you mean, _who_?”

Clarke deflated, suddenly feeling hesitant. What if Bellamy didn’t believe her theory about the house being haunted? What if he slept on it and decided that it was all just a bad dream and his wife was, in fact, insane? What if—?

Her fingers clutched the napkin in her hand.

“That voice we heard last night, the laughter,” she explained. Bellamy nodded and she felt encouraged. “We both heard it, so it must’ve been real. And if that really is a—” her voice wavered “a _ghost_ , that it must be someone. Someone who died here and couldn’t move on?”

She remembered the stories her old nanny used to tell her, about the mysteries and secrets hiding in the walls of old houses, of tragedies that leave a lasting mark on certain places. Clarke had always dismissed those stories and fairy-tales, designed to instil fear and keep the kids in line but now, despite herself, she was starting to believe all those ghost stories. She could only hope her husband could believe them as well.

“You’re right,” Bellamy said, his eyes cleared and focused on her. “I’ve been trying to remember something about the previous owners of this house but as far as I can tell, he was just a lone man, died of old age. And he lived here practically his whole life, which I don’t think would’ve been possible if he had this kind of incorporeal company.”

Clarke agreed with a hum.

“What about the people who sold you the house? Were they his family?”

“I think so, yes. He didn’t go into details but I think that man mentioned a grandfather or an uncle.” Bellamy ran a hand through his hair. “Quite frankly, I wasn’t paying that much attention, all that mattered was that the house didn’t need too much renovations and I thought you’d like it.” Clarke look at him intently but even so, she was barely able to notice the slight blush against Bellamy’s tan skin. He combed his hair with his fingers again, though it did more harm than good.

“I do like it,” Clarke confirmed with a soft smile. “Incorporeal company excluded.”

Bellamy chuckled at that and leaned back in his chair, pulling at the sleeves of his sleep shirt. He still looked rumpled from sleep and Clarke could feel warmth spreading through her. It wasn’t exactly anything new, really, this attraction she felt for Bellamy, but having spent the whole night wrapped in his strong arms brought it all up to the surface. But this was not the time to think about that, not when they were trying to understand what was happening around them.

“I have an idea.” Bellamy’s voice brought Clarke back to the present and she blinked, trying to clear her head. She raised her eyebrows and listened. “I’m going to contact Xavier, the man who sold me the house. Maybe he’ll be able to shed some light on whatever happened her. And in the meantime, maybe you can look around the library. There are still some crates left behind by the Santiagos, with books and journals. They didn’t take them before we moved in and I just couldn’t bring myself to throw away books,” he explained, sounding sheepish.

Clarke hummed, almost chuckling. “Who knew, that you having a soft spot for the written word would be the key to saving us.”

Bellamy laughed, surprised.

“Well, we don’t know that just yet but I’m still going to take this as a compliment,” he teased with a glint in his eye. It made Clarke smile even wider. Suddenly, she no longer felt alone and abandoned. She had a partner now, someone ready to stand by her side in the face of adversities, no matter how strange they were. It was more that she expected from him, from this marriage. No matter how fraught the situation was, Clarke couldn’t help but feel lucky that at the very least, she had found Bellamy.

***

After Bellamy left for his meeting with Xavier Santiago, Clarke finally went back to her bedroom to change for the day. She grabbed a loose blouse, a pair of soft trousers, threw her hair into a knot at the back of her head and all but raced back downstairs, to the library.

The crates that used to belong to Gabriel Santiago, as engraved onto the lids, were just where Bellamy said they’d be, lining the back wall of the library. Clarke spent the better part of the day going through them, trying not to get distracted by all the books she’d found inside. Whoever Gabriel Santiago was, he seemed like a man of eclectic tastes. The volumes contained knowledge of a wide range of subjects, from medicine, chemistry and mathematics, to reincarnation, religion and metaphysics. They all looked terribly captivating and Clarke had to all but force herself to put those down and start looking for some of the more personal effects.

Finally, it the third crate, she found journals. When Bellamy mentioned that Gabriel died an old man, Clarke didn’t think much about it but judging by the amount of the notebooks inside, it wasn’t an exaggeration. She dropped to the floor and rubbed at her forehead, wondering how long would it take to go through all of them or even if she’d find anything useful inside. Finally, she picked one at random and started flipping through the pages. Clarke didn’t like the idea of reading someone else’s journals but those were extreme circumstances.

It quickly became clear that those were not exactly his most private thoughts and feelings, however. The first few journals Clarke went through were more like documentation of research conducted and discoveries made. Gabriel spoke at length about reincarnation, soul and the other side. Clarke didn’t understand much of it at first, having jumped into the middle of what seemed like one long tirade but one thing was sure—if he started exploring the afterlife with such fervour and devotion, there must’ve been a reason and what was more obvious than him losing someone he cared about.

Clarke checked the dates on the spines and searched for something older, hoping for an explanation. And finally, after a few hours of going further and further back, she found it. The tale of the great love between Gabriel Santiago and Josephine Lightbourne. Of a romance cut short and passion so great that made Clarke blush just by reading about it.

That must’ve been her, Clarke thought. The young woman who started out as a close family friend, who Gabriel loved for as long as he remembered, who became his lover and who he wished to marry with all his heart until she was taken away from him. Or at least that’s what Clarke assumed what happened to her. One moment, Gabriel wrote about his plans for proposing to her and then the next, he embarked on a journey to discover if there was any way to bring back his beloved. A journey that he spent to rest of his life on, if the journals were anything to go by.

Clarke spent hours upon hours in the library, trying to figure out if Josephine’s presence was something that Gabriel caused or if it was the reason why he began researching the supernatural in the first place. She was so engrossed in the tale of Gabriel’s life that this time it was Bellamy who startled her out of her focus, when he came in looking for her.

Bellamy sat down on the floor next to her, moving away the journals Clarke had discarded earlier.

“It’s Josephine, isn’t it?” Clarke asked, leaning against the wall, her shoulder brushing Bellamy’s. He nodded heavily and closed his eyes. He knocked his head against the wall.

“It seems so, yes. Xavier was a little surprised that we were interested in her but I told him we just found some of their old things. Asked him even if he wanted them back. I was trying not to sound like I had anything specific in mind, I wasn’t sure how to ask about a ghost without sounding like I was mad, but in the end, I needn’t have worried. Apparently, it’s practically the family legend, so I didn’t need to push too much before he told me that the house used to belong to his grand-uncle, his grandfather’s younger brother.”

“Gabriel.”

“Yes. He was a doctor and he’d worked for Josephine’s father, in his factory. That’s how they met. Apparently, at first Russell Lightbourne was supportive of their friendship, thinking that it would benefit his daughter to spend some with someone so intelligent and educated. And he was right, too. She picked up on things quickly, wanted to conduct her own research once she finished her schools. It was all well and good until Russell decided that a doctor, even one from a wealthy family, wasn’t good enough for his daughter or the Lightbourne family and wanted to marry her off in order to expand his business.”

Clarke smirked. “I’m guessing she wasn’t very happy with that idea.” She remembered something from the journals, shortly before the gap, when Gabriel’s words suggested some heartbreak but he never explicitly said anything about that. In fact now the Clarke thought about it, it was almost like he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. And didn’t get the chance to later.

“Oh, no,” Bellamy answered, shaking his head. “She asked and begged, and then threatened but Russell was not giving in. So, one night, she ran away. It didn’t take them long to figure out that she went to Gabriel’s but still, by then Russell was beyond intoxicated. According to Xavier, everyone suspected that Josephine and Gabriel were doing more than just reading together but it was one thing to have people gossip about it and completely another when Josephine ran and hid at another man’s home, so close to her possible wedding.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, suddenly reminded of the conniption her mother had when she caught Clarke kissing Finn during one of her parties when they were seventeen. Clarke was treated to a long lecture about making smart choices. Who would’ve thought back then that it would be Abby and _her_ bad choices that cost Clarke all her beneficial prospects.

“What happened then?” Clarke asked. “Gabriel never once mentioned that but I have a bad feeling.”

Bellamy looked at her with a sad grimace.

“Russell found her here, they argued. He was aggressive, so she tried to get away from him but he was too strong. He grabbed something and hit her, she fell off the stairs and died.” He swallowed thickly. Clarke took a deep breath and shook her head lightly. That explained the year-long gap in Gabriel’s journals and the dramatic change in his narrative. And the absolute desolation that followed him for the rest of his life.

“Russell was inconsolable after that but he never faced any real consequences, the Lightbournes covered it all up, made it look like an accident,” Bellamy continued after a few moments of silence. “Unsurprisingly, the families broke all ties, though. Gabriel closed his practice and focused on research.”

“Yes, he definitely focused on that,” Clarke said, picking up one of the journals. “I suppose that answers the question of how he became interested in all this but I still can’t tell if he wanted to find a way to bring her back because he felt she was still around or—“ she stopped abruptly, disturbed by her own idea.

“Or?”

“If she’s here because he was somewhat successful and now she’d trapped,” Clarke finished, eyes wide. It was one thing to get used to the idea that they were living with a supernatural entity that had no place in this world, it was another to suspect that the only reason she was here was because she’d been forcefully dragged back from whatever peaceful place she’d been. No wonder she was angry and refused to leave Clarke alone.

“Well, that’s all absolutely terrifying,” Bellamy announced, slapping his knees lightly before getting up from the floor. He extended his hand to Clarke to help her up to her feet. “We’re going to figure out what to do about it later. But for now, how about we try and get some sleep? Maybe before Josephine comes back for more night-time entertainment.”

Clarke nodded eagerly and they both left the library, all of Gabriel’s books and journals still strewn around on the floor. They walked up the stairs together. When they reached the first floor and Bellamy made to turn and walk towards his bedroom, Clarke’s hand shot out almost without any input from her brain, grabbing his wrist. He turned back around to look at her.

“Would you mind if—uhm, I, do you think you could stay with me tonight, too?” Clarke asked, voice small and unsure. “I’m worried that what happened last night, that she tried to do something to me. I—“

Bellamy took a step towards her as she talked, put his other hand on her cheek and smiled.

“Of course, Clarke.” Clarke smiled back and nuzzled into the palm of his hand. “I’ll be with you in a moment, okay?”

Clarke nodded, exhaling slowly. When Bellamy stepped away from her and jogged to his bedroom, Clarke walked up to the next floor. She froze in front of her bedroom door, hand brushing the handle but not opening the door. She clenched her teeth and after steeling herself, she went inside. 

The room looked the same as it always did, the same as it looked that morning when she came in to change. But at the same time, it seemed like a whole different place, now that Clarke knew who was haunting her—and that there actually was someone, something, always there with her.

Clarke shuffled around the room, getting ready for bed. She was brushing her hair when Bellamy knocked on her door and came inside. He waited before Clarke was ready and pulling back the covers before walking towards the bed and helping her. They settled onto the bed without a word but Clarke didn’t need Bellamy to say anything. His strong presence at her side, the sound of his steady breathing was enough for her to feel protected – enough for her to be able to turn the lights off and close her eyes.

Sleep eluded her, though. And judging by his shuffling and sighing, Bellamy couldn’t sleep either. They tried to relax and drift off but apparently, it wouldn’t be so easy.

“Thank you for being here,” Clarke said at one point. She wasn’t sure what made her talk, other than the fact that she wanted to say that to Bellamy for a long time and now it seemed that the darkness emboldened her like nothing ever did.

“You don’t need to thank me, Clarke,” he answered, his hand moving underneath the duvet until his fingers brushed hers, sending an electric shock up her arm. Clarke moved her own hand and hooked her fingers around his.

“Yes, I do. And not just for now. When we met, I was so lost and if it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what I would’ve done. And you’ve been so good to me.”

“Clarke—“ Bellamy interrupted with a sigh.

“Bellamy,” she gasped, exasperated. It was one of the things Clarke had learnt about her husband. He did not take compliments well, like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Can you please just let me thank you for this good thing that you’ve done for me?”

Bellamy hummed in agreement, making Clarke smile.

“Why did you propose marriage, anyway?” stumbled out of her mouth before she could think better of it.

Bellamy stiffened under her touch.

“I knew you were looking for a husband,” he answered, not looking at her. It sounded almost like he was trying to dismiss her but Clarke was wide awake and finally brave enough to ask him what she’d been trying to figure out for months now. He didn’t do it for the money or because he desired her physically, clearly. So, she ploughed on.

“And that’s it? You meet a desperate girl and you decide to give up the rest of your life to get her out of trouble, even though you don’t like her? I cannot believe that!”

“I didn’t dislike you,” Bellamy protested but Clarke just snorted, very unladylike. “It’s the truth!” He insisted with a small laugh. “I was just nervous. Intimidated. Impressed. When Monty and Harper spoke of you, I expected someone different, I think.” Bellamy huffed. “Or maybe I don’t even know what I expected but you surpassed whatever image I may have built in my head. I needed time to readjust.”

Clarke nodded her head. She tried for a solemn expression, even though he couldn’t see her, but a smile broke through anyway.

“Oh, so I swept you off your feet, is what you’re saying. Still, though, you didn’t even know me – not the me that wasn’t desperate for a man to help her out. I could’ve turned out to be absolutely unbearable!”

“It felt like I knew you,” Bellamy muttered and in the corner of her eyes, Clarke noticed that he frowned, like he didn’t really mean to say that.

“What?”

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Your father spoke of you often.”

“My—my father? I don’t understand.” Clarke’s breath hitched, the painful memory of her father still fresh in her mind, no matter how much time had passed.

“In the trenches, he was in charge of our company,” Bellamy explained. “We only spent a few weeks together, I was shot and shipped back home eventually but almost every night, he mentioned you. Sometimes, he’d read a letter you sent him or tell us a story from when you were a child. It was—I don’t know. It made me feel like there still was a world back home. That that hole in the ground wasn’t everything and it was worth it, to fight and stay alive, just so we can go back to that home.”

Clarke felt hot tears roll down her eyes. She grabbed Bellamy’s hand tighter without thinking. He moved his head to look at her and she saw that he smiled a sad smile. “He saved my life, you know. When I got shot, he found me and made sure that I would make it until the medics came. I haven’t seen him after that, haven’t thought about him or you in years. I didn’t even know that he died, not until Monty mentioned you and explained your situation.”

“And then I met you, and you were just as amazing as your father had said.” He smiled, more happy then. “After I came back, during my recovery, I pushed people away, including my sister. I was angry and I couldn’t find my place. I believed that I would never find out anyone willing to put up with me. I didn’t think _you’d_ want to, no matter how dire your situation seemed like. But you never backed down. Hell, you fought back. Like I said, I was impressed. So, I proposed. Didn’t seem like the worst idea I ever had.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Clarke whispered, moving closer to him. She had one more act of bravery left in her, so she rested her head against Bellamy’s shoulder and moved her arm so that she could wrap her other hand around his elbow. Bellamy tensed a little and she readjusted but it looked like he was just surprised because soon after, Clarke could feel him move his own head closer to hers. He rolled over slightly, so he was almost on his side, his face now so close to Clarke thought that she could count the freckles on his cheeks if she had more light.

Somehow, that was the thought that finally allowed her to relax enough to fall asleep. She fell into a dreamless sleep, the kind she didn’t think she experienced since her mother died and Clarke was left alone. Well, she wasn’t alone anymore.

***

They woke up the next day after the night of restless sleep. The ghost stayed quiet the whole time but the both of them kept waking up at all hours, unsure of what might happen next

After that one night of peace though, Josephine came back with a vengeance and from that moment forward, it was happening at all hours. Bellamy took to sleeping in Clarke’s bedroom every night, both for Clarke’s benefit and his own. Seeing her gasping for breath and terrified that first night scared Bellamy enough that he didn’t want her to be alone. Especially since it seemed that once Josephine realised she was able to bring actual harm to Clarke, she started causing damage to the house – shaking furniture, knocking books and knick-knacks off of shelves and painting off the walls.

She never touched either one of them again but if the intensity with which she took to dismantling their home was any indication, it wasn’t for the lack of trying.

One morning, as Clarke was cleaning up the shards of a broken vase, she started to wonder if that night when Josephine attacked her wasn’t actually a stroke of good luck for her, that whatever she was trying to do to Clarke only happened by accident and she was now trying her hardest to figure out how she managed to do it, so she could try again.

Which would mean that things were about to get dangerous. Bellamy sent Mrs. Diyoza on leave the moment the first painting fell off the wall. Judging by the looks she was shooting them both, she didn’t really believe Bellamy’s explanation that they were planning an extended trip but she still didn’t argue against this unexpected opportunity to visit her daughter and her family for Christmas.

Having virtually no family of their own left in the world and Bellamy’s sister far away, he and Clarke happily took their situation as a perfect excuse to bow out of their social obligations and chose to spend the holidays and New Year’s at home alone, in peace and quiet. Or at least that was what they told everyone who asked, every time they declined an invitation to yet another party or soiree. Clarke saw the looks some of the women were throwing her, spying at her waist and trying to determine the size of her clothing and there was no misunderstanding the comments made both to her face and behind her back. Sure enough, there would definitely be many surprised people when in a few months, they still hadn’t welcomed a baby into their family. But truth be told, if the rest of their crowd believed that the reason for their sudden seclusion was that they were diligently working on getting her pregnant, that was fine with her.

At least she no longer had to listen to the barely-hushed voices gossiping about their quick marriage of convenience. She may have left most of the scandal behind in Arkadia Hall but Sanctum City wasn’t all that far away and in this day and age, news travelled fast—and rumours even faster.

And it was definitely better than anyone getting even a hint that something strange was happening at their house. It was a big enough plot that their only neighbours couldn’t even hear anything but Clarke still fretted what would people think, the worry about their reputation amongst their peers ingrained into her whole being. Bellamy on the other hand, didn’t care about that one bit and it was his indifference that finally made her realise how ridiculous it was that whenever she sent someone away from the house, a part of her was more worried about keeping up appearances that the danger their ghost was putting them all in.

Another thing that struck Clarke was that Bellamy didn’t seem to care about his own safety either, only hers. It was true that Josephine started out only interested in Clarke but at first, she believed that it was because of the room she occupied, which for some reason angered the ghost. And since Bellamy was staying there with her now, he wasn’t safe either—and yet he seemed completely unconcerned.

However, ever since Josephine started venturing further into the house, Clarke had to modify her theory. Seeing how many chairs were pulled out onto her path, how many carpets were rolled with the clear intention of tripping her up, it was becoming more and more clear that Bellamy’s worries were justified and Josephine was coming after Clarke specifically, not that they had even the faintest clue why.

Hoping to understand it better, Clarke immersed herself in Gabriel’s research. Soon, it became clear that he wasn’t the one who brought Josephine over here and while some of his work did explore the possibility of sending her back to wherever she came from, a staggeringly bigger part was focused on finding a way not just to communicate with her but also to make her presence more tangible. It sent chills down Clarke’s spine when she read paragraphs upon paragraphs about possession, spirits controlling both dead and living bodies and of ways to rid the body of the soul already living in it, in order for another spirit to enter it instead.

Clarke didn’t yet understand what it meant, but it scared her.

***

One cold, snowy night at the end of December, Clarke and Bellamy were huddled together on one of the sofas they moved from the sitting room to the library, a soft blanket strewn across their legs. Bellamy was going over some legal documents regarding one of his businesses, reports and analysis littering his lap. Clarke had no doubt that he would've been much more comfortable sitting by the desk, instead of trying to keep all of his papers organised on the sofa but it warmed her heart to know that he still chose to sit right next to her, not wanting to be away from her, whenever he could.

Frankly, a lot of things that Bellamy had been doing those last few weeks since she told him about the ghost had warmed her heart. He'd always been perfectly cordial with her, always asking how her day went and if there was anything she needed, but it never felt all that personal. Not until that first night they spent in her bed. Ever since then, he became more tactile with her, asking her more personal questions and even volunteering information about himself, things Clarke didn't dare to ask about before. Now, though, he'd sometimes tell her stories from his childhood, how different it looked from everything he was surrounded by now. On Christmas morning, when they exchanged small gifts, he even told her about his sister and how much it hurt at first, when she moved abroad and how he learnt to accept that she was a grown-up now.

Clarke wasn't sure how to reciprocate at first. She was still digesting the fact that not only he knew her father but also had a small glimpse into her life when it look oh, so much differently. But then, for every little thing Bellamy revealed about himself, Clarke responded in kind. It was amazing that something so unthinkable as a haunting would be the thing to bring them closer together but that’s what happened. And somewhere in the meantime, Clarke had fallen for her husband.

Which is why sitting so close to him while she read through another journal that focused solely on exploring the concept of removing the soul from the body and still keeping it alive long enough for another to enter, was helping with how incredibly disturbed she was at the moment.

Finally, she reached a new chapter, written in a more sloppy handwriting, as if he couldn’t put the words down quickly enough. Clarke gasped when she realized what it was about, pulling Bellamy’s attention away from his documents. 

“Oh, my—“ she whispered, fingers brushing over the letters.

“What’s wrong?”

“I—uh, listen to this,” Clarke said and started to read from the journal. “ _I have recently heard of an experiment in which the physician attempted to determine the weight of a human soul by measuring how much weight, if any, did his subjects lose at the moment of death. While I do not believe this experiment to be a reliable source of information, for the subject group was not big enough to provide with repeatable results and his measuring methods seem deeply flawed, the experiment did help me with my quandary. After treating many cases of head injuries in the past, I observed that sometimes, the body would stay alive for a short period of time, while the patient remained unresponsive, as if the brain had died and the soul had already fled, before the rest of the body shut down as well._

_“I propose that in order to separate the soul from the body, one must simply bring the subject to the brink of death. And if another soul is present, it may enter the vacated shell before it becomes useless and dies. I have not yet discovered when this particular, very precise moment occurs but I believe that the most effective way of conducting this procedure is to steadily deprive the subject of oxygen for it is the best way to control the progress of—_ “ Clarke read but she didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence. Halfway through, Bellamy threw everything out of his lap and stood up abruptly.

“That’s it,” he declared and stormed out of the library, heading towards the stairs. Clarke caught up to him when he was already on the first floor, going even higher, towards her bedroom.

When they reached her door, Bellamy all but kicked it in, the door slamming against the wall, and Clarke had half a mind to wonder if he damaged it.

“Josephine!” he bellowed, coming inside the room and spinning around as if he expected her to just materialize. Clarke followed in a daze, not sure what he was doing. He called out to Josephine again and they both tensed when the lights flickered.

“Good, you’re here,” Bellamy growled. His fists clenched. “Now listen to me very carefully. Whatever deranged experiments you and Gabriel did before, this all ends right now.”

All the pictures on the walls started rattling now and the curtains rustled to the nonexistent breeze. Bellamy didn’t seem to even notice, he just kept on going.

“I do feel for you and your tragic story, and for your lost youth but if you think there is any scenario where I let you touch one hair on my wife’s head!—“ Bellamy was shouting then. He didn’t really have another choice, all that knocking from before came back louder than ever. Clarke blinked a couple of times while her mind processed what was happening. It seemed that Bellamy got there first but now, she too understood exactly what Josephine was trying to do to her that night and why it made Clarke think of drowning.

Bellamy’s chest was heaving and his jaw was clenched so tightly that Clarke could see it working under his skin. She came closer to him and put his hand on his elbow. He flinched at first, as if surprised that she was even there, but as soon as he saw her, he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his embrace. Clarke welcomed his strong arms around her frame, encircling his waist with her own arms and burying her face into his chest. She could feel him take a deep breath in, one of his hands splayed over her back, digging into her skin. He held her tightly enough that Clarke suspected might leave marks but she didn’t care. By then, all the lights in the house were going out and turning themselves back on again. Josephine must’ve opened some of the windows because freezing cold wind blew through the house, chilling her all the way to her core.

“I don’t care what sick plan you and Gabriel came up with but I promise you, the only way you’ll ever get to lay a hand on Clarke will be over my dead body!” Bellamy announced, shouting over the wind and the rattling. And then, the moment he was finished, all the light bulbs in the room and in the corridor exploded all at once, sending tiny shards of glass in all directions. Clarke yelped and felt Bellamy duck in order to shield her from the shrapnel.

They both had their eyes closed and stayed embracing each other until they realized that once the house went dark, the noises went silent, the furniture stopped rattling and the only sounds left were the windows and shutters being moved by the wind and their rugged breathing.

Finally, Clarke and Bellamy disentangled. She could barely see anything but his face was so close to hers that she could read the terrified expression without problem. She raised her hand and brushed her fingers through his hair, removing the glass shards. One of them dug into her skin and she hissed.

Bellamy grabbed her hand immediately, his rough, calloused fingers surprisingly gentle against her skin as he examined the cut.

“You can’t possibly see anything,” Clarke teased, weakly. But it had the desired effect. Bellamy looked up from her hand and into her eyes. There was the smallest of smiles, tugging at the corner of his mouth, fighting a losing battle against his frown. Bellamy closed her hand between both of his and sighed so deeply his shoulders dropped.

“Clarke,” he said. His voice was hoarse from the shouting and he sounded beyond exhausted. Clarke brought her other hand to his face and placed it on his cheek, her thumb brushing under his eye. He nuzzled into her touch.

“I know,” she whispered.

“I promise, I’m going to keep you safe,” Bellamy pleaded.

“ _I know_.” Her hand moved from his cheek down to his neck, where she could feel his pulse hammering against her touch. They were both breathing hard and just stood there, in the middle the room and who could tell how much time passed as they simple stared at each other.

Finally, the cold got to them. Clarke shivered and dropped her hand from Bellamy’s neck. That spurred him into action as well.

“Come on,” he said, still holding her hand. He lead her toward her closet. “Pack a few things, we can’t stay here any longer.”

Retreating like that didn’t seat well with Clarke but still, she nodded. After Bellamy all but declared war on the vengeful, supernatural entity living in their home, staying there wasn’t an option. Neither of them spoke while Clarke gathered her necessities or later, when Bellamy grabbed his things at random and shoved them into his luggage. As Clarke stood in the doorway and waited for him, it occurred to her that it was the first time she really saw his bedroom for any longer that a few fleeting moments. She didn’t have the time to admire it though, because in a blink of an eye, Bellamy was done and they were fleeing the house.

As Bellamy drove them to the nearest hotel, Clarke looked back at the house, now completely swallowed by darkness and wondered how on earth did their lives come to this.

***

They spend the whole day at the hotel, not daring to leave the safety of their room, before Clarke finally convinced herself that Josephine had not in fact followed them there. And then, it was time to make a decision.

“We can just move,” Bellamy suggested, pacing around the room. “We can sell that bloody house and go, just you and me.”

Clarke huffed. “And then what? Someone else moves in and Josephine gets to try again with them? Hurts them? How is that a solution?”

Bellamy deflated and dropped onto an armchair, rubbing his forehead. “I know, you’re right.” He hummed. “I think we need to talk to Xavier. I don’t know, he probably doesn’t know anything but he knew Gabriel, maybe he heard or saw something that can help us.”

Clarke agreed with a nod. She wasn’t very fond of the idea of involving anyone else and putting them in Josephine’s crosshairs but Bellamy was right. Short of demolishing the building and condemning the grounds, she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

The whole time Bellamy spent at the reception desk, phoning Xavier, Clarke had taken upon herself to complete his mission of wearing down a perfect circle in the carpet. After what happened at the house, Clarke was anxious to let him out of her sight, even if he’d only gone a few floors down and promised to return quickly. Still, only when Bellamy walked back into the room did she relax, letting herself take a deeper breath. She almost threw herself into his arms to calm her irrational worry that something might’ve happened to him on the way down or back to the room again, but she stopped herself. Away from the immediate danger, Bellamy withdraw from her again. He remained caring and concerned about her well-being but he stopped touching her casually like he’d grown to do over the last few weeks. They each spent the night on their respective side of the bed and for the first time in a while, Clarke found herself struggling to fall asleep not because of fear but because she missed her husband’s warm embrace.

Clarke shook her head, hoping to clear her mind. There was a time and a place to deliberate over the state of her marriage but this was most definitely not it.

“And?” she asked weakly.

“And he’s going to come by tomorrow morning.”

She nodded. “What did you—how much did you tell him?”

Bellamy sighed. He walked to the futon and sat down heavily. “Everything.” He rested his elbows on his knees and closed his eyes for a moment. Clarke joined him, sitting down on his left and placed her hand on his shoulder. Bellamy smiled lightly, his hand coming up to cover hers.

“The moment I mentioned Gabriel’s research, he knew exactly what I was talking about,” he explained. “Apparently, Gabriel’s interests were well-known in the family and of all of them, Xavier had always been the most open to the possibility that they weren’t just ravings of a disturbed old man, who’s lost his mind to grief.”

“When I asked him about Josephine, he went silent for a while, long enough that I thought the line had gone dead but he promised to help us however he could,” Bellamy said. Clarke felt a spark of hope form somewhere deep inside her. She had no idea how much help Xavier would be but there was something about having another person believe her that seemed to raise her spirits. So to speak.

***

They checked out of the hotel the next morning and drove back to the house. The tension in the car was palpable and it only grew once they stood at their front door, neither one of them quite able to open it. Finally, the decision was made for them when someone called Bellamy’s name and they both turned around to see a tall, young man standing at the gate.

“Xavier,” Bellamy greeted him with a tight smile and the man came up to them, taking off his hat to nod at Clarke.

“Mr. Santiago, welcome,” she said but he shook his head lightly.

“Xavier, please. We’re about to embark on a dangerous quest together, I believe the formalities will only slow us down.” He smirked gently and Clarke found herself smiling, surprisingly.

“Clarke, then.” She offered her hand, which Xavier shook firmly. At their side, Bellamy cleared his throat, his face carefully blank but the suddenly cold glare he sent Xavier wasn’t hard to decipher. He didn’t seem too fond of Xavier’s forwardness but Clarke chose not to dwell on the reason. There would be time to talk about it later. She hoped.

“So,” Bellamy spoke, rather stiffly, finally opening the door. “You are aware of the—hmm”

“The ghost?” Xavier supplied with a grimace. “You can say that. I’m certainly familiar with Gabriel’s obsession with Josephine.”

The walked inside and Clarke felt the same chill run through her that she felt on her very first day in the house. She found herself assessing it just as she did all those months ago. It’s only been two nights since they’d last been here and yet, the house felt utterly abandoned.

Xavier came inside the furthest, almost reaching the staircase.

“I feel that I should apologise for not disclosing to you the possibility of having an unwanted tenant but I honestly thought—“ he sighed. “Truth be told, I never actually believed Gabriel, when he spoke about Josephine’s _ghost_. I knew there was something strange happening here, I’ve witnessed things I couldn’t explain often enough but Gabriel’s theory sounded so fantastic, it simply couldn’t have been possible. And besides, thing went quiet after he died and we had no problems here those last few years, so I convinced myself that whatever was happening here, simply stopped without him.”

He turned to look at Clarke and the intensity of his gaze stopped her in her tracks. Very quickly, she felt the warm presence of Bellamy at her side. He placed a hand at the small of her back and she felt herself lean into his touch. Xavier smiled at her sadly and hummed.

“I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that you, Clarke, of all people sparked Josephine’s interests again,” he said, digging through the pockets of his coat. He pulled out a small picture and handed it to her. “You look so much like her.”

Clarke looked down at the photograph of a young blonde woman and gasped. The resemblance was—disturbing. Josephine was smirking at the camera, one leg crossed over another and the hem of her dress hiked to reveal her ankle and such a portion of her calf that it couldn’t possibly have been appropriate, given that the picture must’ve been at least fifty years old.

Xavier chuckled at Clarke’s expression. “Uncanny, isn’t it? Surely, you must understand why she picked you.”

“So, you know of his experiments?” Bellamy demanded to know, his voice slightly raised and Clarke could hear the edge there. She wasn’t surprised, though. If she weren’t still speechless at the moment, she would’ve asked the same thing.

“Yes,” Xavier confirmed, regretfully. “You see, Josephine was the greatest love of my great-uncle’s life. The only one. He blamed himself for her death for the rest of his life, even long after the man who actually killed her and the rest of her family were gone as well. Our own family could never relate to that grief and he retreated from them and from the rest of the world. From what I know, when he started talking about ghosts and the other side, they all though he’d lost contact with reality as well but the research he conducted, his experiment, some of it had actually brought him a lot of money—and that they were glad to take advantage of, whether he was crazy or not.”

“How about his ventures into possession, huh?” Bellamy growled. It seemed that he was starting to lose patience. Clarke couldn’t blame him, none of this was bringing them any closer to getting rid of Josephine. But having read a large part of Gabriel’s journals recently, she found herself listening intently. The subjects of some of his investigations may have repulsed her but a part of her wanted to know more about the man behind it and whatever had happened to him to lead him on such a dark path.

Her husband didn’t share this curiosity, though. “How much money did he earn by trying to prove he can bring someone back from the dead? How many _subjects_ did he sacrifice in order to reclaim that great love?” Bellamy asked with a snarl. His hand moved from her back down to her wrist. His fingers brushed her skin and Clarke flexed her fingers at the sudden sensation of an electrical current running all the way to their tips. She grabbed his hand without looking at him, intertwining their fingers together. She felt him squeeze her hand, hoping to reassure her or himself, she couldn’t tell. But it helped.

“Is that what Josephine wants from me? To steal my body so that she could—come back?” Clarke asked, finally finding her voice. And right then, as if hearing her name called out, Josephine was there. All of the doors and windows blew open and the sudden gust of wind tore at the curtains. Clarke’s hair were torn out of the loose knot she put them in and were flowing around her, as if someone was picking up tendrils and moving them purposefully. A block of ice dropped down into her stomach, chilling her to the bone. She gasped loudly.

Bellamy’s hold on her hand tightened even more, so much so that he was almost crushing her bones but she didn’t even mind. When he stepped even closer to her, his chest touching her back, Clarke was tempted to bury herself into his embrace but enough was enough.

“It that what you want?” Clarke called out into the air, voice wavering. She steeled herself. “You want to get rid of me, so that you could come back? And then what?! Everyone you love, whoever loved you, is long gone now. You have no-one left, there’s nothing waiting for you here.” She felt herself grow angrier and clearly, so did Josephine. The windows were rattling so hard that the glass was only moments away from breaking. That wasn’t working.

“But you were loved,” Clarke tried again. “So much. Your father never forgave himself for what happened, your mother never got over your loss either.”

One of the pictures fell of the wall, the frame cracking.

“And Gabriel! He could never, ever move on. He spent his whole life alone, trying to find a way to bring you back. His grief made him do and come up with terrifying ideas, all because he loved you so much, he didn’t know how to live his life without you,” Clarke spun her tale, hoping Josephine would—she wasn’t sure what she was hoping for, really. A vengeful, angry spirit didn’t seem like something that would respond well to romantic fables but she didn’t have a better idea. And she wasn’t stretching the truth too much, either. That much was clear from Gabriel’s journals.

“A love like that, it doesn’t happen every day, believe me. But it is gone now! The man who loved you died, alone and in pain because he’d lost you, because he couldn’t move on. But maybe you can,” Clarke pleaded, one of her hands still firmly clasped in Bellamy’s, but the other outstretched in front of her, waving around the foyer. “Look at this place, there’s nothing left for you here. You’re the only one left!” she exclaimed.

Another gust of wind blew through the house, stronger and more sudden now. All the lights flickered on at once, glowing lighter and lighter, almost blinding them all.

And then, just as suddenly as it happened, it all stopped.

Clarke blinked a few times and looked around her. She couldn’t understand—any of it. But for the first time since she’d come to the house, she could no longer feel that chill at the back of her neck.

“She’s gone,” Clarke announced, inexplicably sure of herself. She turned around to look at Bellamy. “ _She’s gone_.”

Bellamy opened his mouth, as if to say something, but instead he used his hold on her hand to pull her into him. Both of his arms encircled her waist and Clarke had to grip onto his shoulders in order to keep herself steady, as he lifted her a couple of inches above the floor. She could feel his whole body shaking against her and a pang of concern went through her until she finally realised that he was laughing, almost hysterically. Clarke wrapped her arms around her neck, his face buried into her clavicle. She could’ve sworn she heard him say something, something that sounded almost like—

But no, that couldn’t have been it, could have?

***

Neither one of them could tell how much time had passed between Josephine’s leaving, Xavier saying goodbye and the two of them finally letting go of each other.

Only then did Clarke notice that they were still wearing their coats, not that they were doing them much good, the house had cooled so much in the meantime. Bellamy walked over to the front windows and started closing them quickly. He rubbed his hands together once he’d finished and looked around, his eyebrows raised impossibly high.

“We’ve got some cleaning to do,” he said with a grimace. Clarke chuckled and followed him to the sitting room.

They sure had a lot to do. The whole house looked like a hurricane rolled through it, random items were strewn around the floor everywhere, curtains had been shredded into ribbons and some of the rooms even had small puddles of melted snow next to the windows.

Unsurprisingly, Clarke’s bedroom had suffered the brunt of Josephine’s anger. Clarke couldn’t even take two steps inside without stepping on something, the glass from the broken lightbulbs crunching underneath her feet. Which was why once they were done with most of the cleaning, Bellamy had simply taken Clarke by the hand and led her to his own bedroom for the night.

It was the first time that she had the chance to really look at it and when he left her by herself while he went to the bathroom, she didn’t waste any more time to look around. It was such a simple room, clearly she’d been offered the master bedroom, but there were little touches of Bellamy everywhere. Clarke smiled at the pile of books he’d brought over from the library, his warm sweater – that she so often ended up wearing in the evenings – hanging haphazardly over the chair.

The two picture frames on his bedside table gave her pause, though. One of them contained a slightly faded photograph of a young woman with long dark hair and defiant expression on her face. _Octavia_. The other one was a smaller copy of the picture hanging (or used to, anyway) in the main sitting room—their wedding picture. Clarke walked over, picked up the frame gently and smiled to herself. They were both standing stiffly next to each other, their smiles looking a little forces but most of all, they both seemed stressed. _Oh, if they only knew_ , Clarke thought.

“Aren’t you glad now that Harper convinced us to take those after all?” Bellamy asked, coming up behind her. Clarke leaned closer to him and smiled. Back then, she struggled a little trying to see the point of taking the pictures. All she could think of was how terrified she was to be married to a man she didn’t know, planning a proper wedding seemed like an effort she didn’t have the strength for. Harper helped so much with those details and when they discussed hiring the photographer, she just smiled and said that Clarke would thank her one day. Guess she’d really have to do that.

“I didn’t know that you had this,” she said, looking up at him. She was surprised to see that he was blushing lightly. It made her feel so, so light and warm.

Bellamy shrugged one shoulder. “It was a good day,” he muttered, not quite looking at her. Was he embarrassed that she’d discovered this small sentimental touch? Clarke didn’t know what to say to let him know how much that meant to her. Now that the danger was over, she was finally allowing herself to feel all those things she’d been pushing away for later, for when she’d have the chance to analyse them. Only now, when that time finally came, she was feeling a little overwhelmed by those sudden bursts of emotions. She wished she could just turn around and tell him—well, that was the problem.

She thought she loved him, that she’d fallen in love with him. And that brave, crazy part of her believed that the feeling might be mutual. But what if it wasn’t? What if all of this was just the result of the insane situation they’d been thrown into and very soon they’ll go back to their ‘normal’ of polite conversations and separate bedrooms? She couldn’t really believe that, didn’t want to. But she also chose not to tempt fate any more.

Clarke put the picture frame back on the table and without a word, climbed onto the bed and settled on her side. And if she wanted a confirmation that she made the right choice, Bellamy laid down on the other side and bid her a good night without so much as a single touch.

When the lights were turned off and the bedroom was shrouded in darkness, Clarke allowed herself a quick look over at him. All she could see was the outline of his figure but it was enough. Having him there, next to her was enough for her to finally go to sleep peacefully.

Only sleep wouldn’t come. She laid there for a very long while, unable to stop mulling over the events of the last few weeks, and she knew that Bellamy couldn’t sleep either. He’d been tossing and turning even more than she had, which is why she knew she wouldn’t disturb him when she spoke out loud.

“You know what’s really fucked up?” She surprised herself with her own coarse language but well, it’s been that kind of a day. She turned to her side to look at Bellamy. He rolled over to face her as well and hummed in question.

“I always assumed that Josephine stayed behind because she loved Gabriel and missed him. I thought that’s why she wanted to come back. But when I told her much they all loved her and cared for her, she only got more angry.” Clarke lifted herself into a half-sitting position, one shoulder against the headboard. Bellamy put his hand under his hand and looked up at her. “It wasn’t until I told her that Gabriel died lonely and miserable that she finally let go and left. Like that was the thing that finally satisfied her. Who—who does that? What kind of a person wants their loved ones to suffer like that?”

Bellamy sat up and leaned against the headboard, so close to Clarke that she could put her head on her shoulder. “Maybe she wasn’t always like that. I wouldn’t be too happy if someone killed me and then I got stuck as a ghost for decades,” he countered.

Clarke moved away from him and leaned forward, pulling her legs into her chest. She rested her cheek against her knee and looked at him sideways. It was still dark in the room but her eyes had adjusted enough that she could almost see his expression. “Still, she was here with him, she saw what he was going through. How could she have wanted that for him?” She let out a breath. “I mean, if I died, I wouldn’t want you to be so wretched, I’d wish that you could move on and found someone else you might love again, who could make you happy,” Clarke mused and it wasn’t until the words were out of her mouth that she realised what she’d said.

“Uhm.” She blanched, looking away. She shut her eyes tightly. “Not that you, I mean—I wasn’t implying that you’re—that you love me,” she muttered that last part into her knees, having buried her head into her lap. She heard rustling behind her, knew that Bellamy was moving but didn’t expect him to end up so close to her.

“Clarke,” he whispered, so close to her ear that she shuddered, feeling his breath on her skin. She didn’t move though. If he was about to reject her, she didn’t have to look at him while he did that.

“ _Clarke_ ,” he said again, a little louder and more insistent now. He put his hand on her arm and tugged, trying to make her look at him. Clarke didn’t move at first but the way he was stroking her arm gently melted her resolve. She untangled her limbs and looked up at him. His face was so close to her that she could see very clearly the soft look and pleading eyes. His hand slid down her arm and towards her own hand. He took it and pulled it into his chest.

Bellamy curled his fingers around hers, lifting their joint hands to his lips. He brushed a soft kiss onto his knuckles. Clarke’s fingers twitched and she squeezed them tighter in his grasp.

With his free hand, Bellamy cupped her cheek, guiding her face towards his. They were but a breath away, noses brushing, when he spoke again. “I do love you,” he said and blood rushed to Clarke’s ears. It was a good thing he hadn’t said anything else because she wouldn’t have been able to hear him anyway. Instead, he pulled her face even closer and placed the softest of kisses on her lips. Clarke gasped into his mouth, which seemed to spur him into action. He wrapped his arm around her waist and all but lifted her into his lap, never once breaking the kiss. Clarke giggled against him, making him growl lowly.

Bellamy kissed him way over her jaw, down her neck and over her shoulder, moving the collar of her nightgown away.

“I love you,” he muttered into her skin, pressing kiss after kiss, setting her skin on fire. Clarke squirmed and wrapped her arms around his head. Bellamy’s mouth travelled down, onto the top of her breast. She moaned and buried her face into the crook of his neck.

“I love you, too,” Clarke whispered against his pulse point and pressed a soft kiss there. She didn’t know what else to do, she was so overwhelmed by his touch, the way his hands and mouth were sending tiny sparks of electricity thought her entire body. Bellamy looked up at her, smiling so happily. Clarke nuzzled closer into his embrace and Bellamy manoeuvred them so that she was on her back and he hover above her, propped up on one elbow. His other hand landed on her waist and moved upwards, towards her breast, bunching her nightgown as it went along. Clarke let out a few short gasps when his fingers curled around her ribs. He pause immediately when he felt her stiffen a bit. He went to move his hand away but Clarke covered his hand with hers and kept it there.

“I’m just—“ she started weakly but she didn’t know what to say. Her brain was hazy with excitement and arousal was spreading all over her body. She moved under him, pressed herself closer, hoping he’ll understand what she wanted. She placed her hand tentatively over his waist, fingers hooking under the waist band of his undergarments. Her touch was nothing more than a brush against his warm skin but she could still feel his muscles moving, tightening.

Bellamy’s hand moved slowly upwards, from her ribs to her breast, her own hand going up with him. A soft moan escaped from her mouth when he cupped her breast and ran his thumb over her hardened nipple, still covered by the soft material of her nightgown. Bellamy’s head dipped lower, his lips brushing against her jaw. Clarke didn’t let him go then, she surged up and followed his lips, catching them in a kiss. Bellamy hummed and she could feel him grind against her core.

Bellamy tugged at her sleeve and Clarke moved her hand to loosen the silky ribbon tying the nightgown over her chest. She could herself blush a deep scarlet when the material fell away from her body, revealing her naked bosom to her husband.

Bellamy kissed down her chest, over her sternum and towards her navel. Clarke was sure she was letting out high-pitched moans but they didn’t quite register. The last thing she was really sure of was Bellamy asking her if she was okay and smiling, when she nodded in confirmation. The rest was lost in the haze of ecstasy.

***

The next morning, for the first time, Clarke was the first to wake up. She was once again wearing her nightgown, having put it back on before they fell asleep. Bellamy smiled at her when she declared it was still way too cold to sleep naked. He didn’t have such reservations. Clarke woke up tucked into his side, both his arms around her middle, keeping her warm and safe.

She places a soft kiss over his heart, listening to its steady beat. She traced and old scar on his abdomen with her fingers, the tissue ragged and angry, and she shuddered at the thought how close did that enemy bullet come to taking him away from her, long before she ever had the chance to meet him. She was sure now, that even if she hadn’t met him, she’d still miss him, somehow.

At one point, Bellamy’s breathing changed and he started moving against her. She fixed her gaze on his chest, suddenly feeling incredibly shy after what happened at night.

“Morning,” he mumbled hoarsely. Clarke could barely hear him but she could feel the rumble of his voice. Finally, she looked up at him, resting her chin against his chest.

“Hi,” she answered. Bellamy’s arms tightened around her waist. She blushed again, feeling him hard against her hip. For all that this was new to her, she knew Bellamy was more experienced. One night, a while ago, he told her about how he’d spent the War before he got injured. When it became clear that it wouldn’t end as quickly as everyone thought it would, he understood that sooner rather than later, he too would get drafted. He’d lost himself to alcohol and women for a short time then, until he remembered that his sister still depended on him and if he were to die in combat, he needed to make sure she was taken care of.

In turn, Clarke told her about Finn and Lexa, about her two sweet but short-lived teenaged romances that never had the chance to grow into anything serious. Still, she never mentioned their wedding night. She never found the courage to ask Bellamy about it. Not until now, when he looked at her like she was the sun, making her feel more loved that she thought possible.

“You never came to me, after the wedding,” she said, quietly, swallowing thickly. A small frown flew over his forehead. She cleared her throat and tried again. “On our wedding night, we never—I waited for you but you never came. Did you not want me?” she asked, feeling embarrassed at how small she sounded.

Bellamy sighed deeply and placed a kiss on the side of her head. He smiled down at her.

“Clarke, I wanted you within five minutes of meeting you. You called me rude and stubborn and I think at least a small part of me has loved you ever since. But we didn’t know each other. I had no idea what your expectation about our marriage were but the last thing I wanted was to make you uncomfortable by imposing on you—or make you think I would ever touch you if you didn’t want me to,” he explained in one breath. Clarke felt a ball grow in her throat, making it hard to breathe.

Her fingers, still resting on his chest, moved, brushing against his skin. They stopped when she reached the trail of short, coarse hairs on his lower abdomen. Bellamy pressed himself closer to her and she almost gave in to tt he pleasure but there was still one thing left still gnawing on her.

“Do you remember when I told you about Josephine, when I first heard her voice,” she said and Bellamy nodded, confused. “That very first night, I thought that maybe you—that she was your, uhm, _guest_.” Clarke’s gaze dropped from him, unable to look him in the eye just then.

Bellamy let go of her then but before she could start worrying about that, he cupped her face with his hands and kissed her.

“Never,” he said decisively, and intense look in his eyes. “I promised you the rest of my life. Only you. And I intend to keep that promise, whatever awaits for us in this life or the next.”

A single tear rolled down the side of Clarke’s face but Bellamy quickly caught it with his thumb and pressed a gentle kiss over the spot.

Clarke had no idea what she expected from this union when she married Bellamy Blake almost a whole year ago now. Back then, she couldn’t see much of a future for herself that stretched further than the next day, a week maybe, and she dreaded whatever would come after that. But right now, laying in the safe comfort of her husband’s embrace, the rest of her life didn’t sound daunting all. In fact, she couldn’t wait for it.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked this! thank you so very much for reading. comments and kudos will be welcomed like manna ;-)  
> come and find me on tumblr @[carrieeve](https://carrieeve.tumblr.com).


End file.
